While the headline at Breitbart was presumably assembled for the expressed purpose of attracting readership (mission accomplished, if so), it will be explicitly stated here that this compilation certainly does not assert that “Global Warming Is A Myth”. It isn’t. Large regions of the Earth have undergone a warming trend in the last century, rising out of the depths of the Little Ice Age.

It is also true that these papers are not claimed to literally “debunk” any positions currently held by those who advocate for the main “consensus” positions related to anthropogenic global warming. That particular d-word was used in another headline. Instead of using such ambitious and affirmative language, the nuanced words used to describe what this list is proposed to accomplish were carefully chosen so as not to assert it does more (or less) than actually claimed.

What the papers and graphs in this compilation actually do is support many of the main skeptical positions which question climate alarm. Namely, they support the position(s):

N(1) natural mechanisms play well more than a negligible role (as claimed by the IPCC) in the net changes in the climate system, which includes temperature variations, precipitation patterns, weather events, etc., and the influence of increased CO2 concentrations on climatic changes are less pronounced than currently imagined;

N(2) the warming/sea levels/glacier and sea ice retreat/hurricane and drought intensities…experienced during the modern era are neither unprecedented or remarkable, nor do they fall outside the range of natural variability, as clearly shown in the first 100 graphs (from 2017) in this volume;

N(3) the computer climate models are not reliable or consistently accurate, and projections of future climate states are little more than speculation as the uncertainty and error ranges are enormous in a non-linear climate system; and

N(4) current emissions-mitigation policies, especially related to the advocacy for renewables, are often ineffective and even harmful to the environment, whereas elevated CO2 and a warmer climate provide unheralded benefits to the biosphere (i.e., a greener planet and enhanced crop yields).

In sharp contrast to the above, the corresponding “consensus” positions that these papers do not support are:

RealClimate.org: “The best estimate of the warming due to anthropogenic forcings (ANT) is the orange bar (noting the 1𝛔 uncertainties). Reading off the graph, it is 0.7±0.2ºC (5-95%) with the observed warming 0.65±0.06 (5-95%). The attribution then follows as having a mean of ~110%, with a 5-95% range of 80–130%. This easily justifies the IPCC claims of having a mean near 100%, and a very low likelihood of the attribution being less than 50% (p < 0.0001!).”

A(2) Modern warming, glacier and sea ice recession, sea level rise, drought and hurricane intensities…are all occurring at unprecedentedly high and rapid rates, and the effects are globally synchronous (not just regional)…and thus dangerous consequences to the global biosphere and human civilizations loom in the near future as a consequence of anthropogenic influences;

A(3) The climate models are reliable and accurate, and the scientific understanding of the effects of both natural forcing factors (solar activity, clouds, water vapor, etc.) and CO2 concentration changes on climate is “settled enough“, which means that “the time for debate has ended“;

A(4) The proposed solutions to mitigate the dangerous consequences described in N(4) – namely, wind and solar expansion – are safe, effective, and environmentally-friendly.

The 400+ papers compiled so far support the N(1)-N(4) positions, and they undermine or at least do not support the “consensus” A(1)-A(4) positions. The papers do not do more than that. Unreasonable expectations that these papers should do more than support skeptical positions and undermine “consensus” positions to “count” are rooted in straw man argumentation.

Specifically, claiming that a scientific paper must assert that CO2 does not play a major role in climate to be characterized as a paper supporting a skeptical positions in N(1)-N(4) is disingenuous at best. The opposite wouldn’t ever stand, of course. Let’s say an author of a scientific paper did not explicitly state that she disagrees that natural factors play a significant role in modern climate change. Would that mean that we could say the paper affirms that climate changes are significantly natural? Of course not. And yet this very same non-sequitur is employed here with regularity when disingenuously arguing that these papers do not do what they claim to do – especially since what they are claimed to do has not been accurately characterized.

As an aside, if we were to look at the papers that Cook et al. (2013) used to concoct the 97% “consensus” document we would find that Cook and his colleagues actually classified papers (and magazine articles) about cooking stoves in Brazil, phone surveys, asthma-related ER visits in Montreal, TV coverage . . . as scientific papers “endorsing” the position that all or nearly all of the global warming occurring since 1950 has been human-caused (the “consensus” statement). Of course, none of the papers identified in the link below that were categorized as “endorsing” the clearly defined anthropogenic/post-1950 “consensus” statement actually used those specific words. And yet they were curiously counted anyway.

http://ift.tt/1wMYmEI“The Cook et al. (2013) 97% paper included a bunch of psychology studies, marketing papers, and surveys of the general public as scientific endorsement of anthropogenic climate change.”

With that lengthy (but necessary) introduction, I will now take the time to carefully construct a response to the YouTube video critique of the 400+ papers list as authored by potholer54, who I shall hereafter refer to as PH54 for lack of a better title.

1. After having thoroughly criticized James Delingpole’s analysis and style for the first few minutes, PH54 digs in and correctly suggests that the NoTricksZone headline and emboldened first paragraph is more “nuanced” than Breitbart‘s. He attempts to summarize what the 400+ papers represent by claiming they are meant to cast doubt on the conclusion that CO2 is a major driver of climate change — and no more. Of course, as described above, there is far more to it than that, but soundbites are to be expected in short videos like this.

2. PH54 then, for reasons that are not clear, returns to using the Breitbart interface instead of using the NoTricksZone article and paper reference lists — which have far more detail and may include graphs that correspond to the paper. Perhaps the reasons why will become apparent.

3. PH54 spends some time providing visuals of electric heaters warming an indoor room. CO2 and the Sun are assumed to be just like two equally powerful heaters. The Sun drives climate when the CO2 is stable, which it was during much of the Holocene. Low solar activity causes cooling and high solar activity causes warming. And in modern times, PH54 asserts, the Sun has been “turned down” just as the CO2 heater has been turned up. So, during the modern era, CO2 drives climate. The Sun used to drive warming and climate changes, but it no longer does.

4.Li et al. 2017 is the first paper directly discussed. PH54 identifies what he calls the key words in the paper: Late Holocene. He writes that the paper only addresses the last 2200 years, and it does not address the impacts of solar activity on modern climate. He notes that solar forcing is not even mentioned in the title. (CO2 isn’t either.)

PH54 then starts in on his main theme (as introduced in 2. above). Yes, the Sun drives climate in the Late Holocene, and not CO2. How do we know this? Because CO2 was stable during the last 10,000 years – coasting between 250 ppm and 280 ppm. So PH54 agrees, apparently, that the cold temperatures occurring during centennial-scale solar minima (Maunder, Dalton) would allow us to conclude that the Sun was a main driver of climate during those periods. Likewise, the Medieval Maximum, a period of high solar activity, led to warm temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period, or Medieval Climate Anomaly (as it is preferred).

But it’s at that point – the Late Holocene – where the Sun apparently stops driving temperatures. Why? Because the CO2 heating machine took over.

5. But let’s get back to the Li et al. (2017) paper. Now, because PH54 used the Breitbart article for a reference instead of the more detailed NoTricksZone visuals, he apparently missed the graphs shown below that appeared in the paper. The top graph (red trend line) is a solar activity reconstruction for the last millennium. Notice the sharp uptick in solar activity during the modern era. This is referred to as the Modern Grand Maximum, with the levels of solar activity exceeding those occurring the Medieval Warm Period. Now notice the bottom graph (gold). It’s a graph of Northern Hemisphere temperatures. Interestingly, there appears to be a very close correlation between the solar activity and the hemispheric temperature, including during the 20th century, when CO2 is said to have been the temperature driver.

6. Another aspect of this Li et al. (2017) paper that was ostensibly missed by PH54 (apparently because he chose to use Breitbart‘s one- or two-sentence summary rather than NoTricksZone’s much more detailed summary complete with graphics) is the commentary about the impact of CO2 forcing relative to solar forcing. The authors conclude that CO2 may play a role in “partly affecting climate variability” in North China, but that the overall long-term control on temperature is “solar-dominated.”

“High volumes of greenhouse gases such as CO2 and CH4 during the recent warming periods, may also play a role in partly affecting the climatic variability in NC, superimposing on theoverall solar-dominated long-term control(e.g., Wanner et al., 2008; Tan et al., 2011; Kobashi et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2015a,b).”

7. The Li et al. (2017) paper also contains a graph of North China that shows the modern temperatures (which have been flat since about 1950) are no warmer now than they were during Medieval times. And, like the Northern Hemisphere in general, they appear to follow the general pattern of solar activity. In other words, this paper supports both N(1) and N(2), and it does not support A(1) and A(2). That’s why it was included on the list.

8. Then, continuing the Holocene-only theme introduced in 2. and 4. above, PH54 addresses the second paper on the Breitbart list (again ignoring what is shown on NoTricksZone), Yndestad and Solheim (2017) . He again claims these scientists were only talking about the Holocene in their paper, not the modern period. He even includes a visual of the abstract with underlined red lines over the years 1000 AD and 1700 AD. Had PH54 decided to read the rest of the paper – or even look at the NoTricksZone summary – he would have seen that the authors clearly referred to the modern period (multiple times), and they even referenced the coming solar minimum for the coming decades. They especially made note of the millennial-scale uniqueness of the very high solar activity for the 1940 to 2000 period, referring to it as a rare event with levels exceeding all but the grand maximum events of 4,000 and 8,000 years ago.

“Deterministic models based on the stationary periods confirm the results through a close relation to known long solar minima since 1000 A.D. and suggest a modern maximum period from 1940 to 2015. Studies that employ cosmogenic isotope data and sunspot data indicate that we are currently leaving a grand activity maximum, which began in approximately 1940 and is now declining (Usoskin et al., 2003; Solanki et al., 2004; Abreu et al., 2008). Because grand maxima and minima occur on centennial or millennial timescales, they can only be investigated using proxy data, i.e., solar activity reconstructed from 10Be and 14C time-calibrated data. The conclusion is that the activity level of the Modern Maximum (1940–2000) is a relatively rare event, with the previous similarly high levels of solar activity observed 4 and 8 millennia ago (Usoskin et al., 2003). Periods with few sunspots are associated with low solar activity and cold climate periods. Periods with many sunspots are associated with high solar activity and warm climate periods.”

9. Here is the solar activity reconstruction featured prominently in the Yndestad and Solheim paper (and in NoTricksZone):

10. Ignoring the TSI graph from the paper itself, which shows a net +3 W m-2 increase in solar forcing between 1900 and 2000, PH54 produced a graph showing declining sunspot numbers that did not appear in the Yndestad and Solheim paper. Why not use the Yndestad and Solheim reconstruction? Probably because it showed the opposite of what his graph of declining solar activity showed: That we have experienced a Modern Grand Maximum of solar activity, +3 W m-2 of forcing, since the beginning of the 20th century and continuing on through to about 2000. It’s rather odd that the author of a video “exposing” that a paper doesn’t say what is claimed would proceed to refuse to actually read the paper itself (that references the modern period), or that he would avoid using the graph that was provided in the paper or by NoTricksZone. Instead, PH54 chose to comment using a preferred graph of solar activity that supports his own viewpoints…and a summary provided by Breitbart.

11. PH54 concludes: “[Yndestad and] Solheim doesn’t debunk the theory that CO2 is a major driver of climate. It’s quite consistent with it.”

This is odd. The authors don’t comment on CO2 as the “major driver of climate” in their paper.

12. Then, after commenting on just those two papers (which were selected by James Delingpole), both of which suggest that solar activity has indeed contributed to modern climate in a significant way, PH54 states: “You get the point. The highlighted papers just looking at past warming…when CO2 levels were stable.”

This is false. While it’s true that many of the papers on the list do indeed only refer to past climates in asserting that solar activity drove centennial-scale temperature changes, there are also many that refer to the significant influence of solar activity on the modern climate, including the first two discussed by PH54.

13. PH54: “You can check the [Delingpole] list yourself. It’s not that hard. All you have to do is look at Delingpole’s summary.”

Delingpole only provided a handful of the examples from the papers. The full list of 110 solar-influence papers, with more complete summaries and temperature graphs, are found on the NoTricksZone list. It’s interesting that PH54 accuses Delingpole of not reading the papers himself, or relying on others to do the reading and summarizing for him…and then he goes ahead and relies on Delingpole for summaries of what the papers say.

14. PH54: Delingpole writes “Modern climate in phase with natural variability. But the two papers he cites are talking about precipitation.”

Interestingly, PH54 has ostensibly decided that precipitation patterns are not sufficient to count as climate. Apparently climate is about temperature, and temperature only. Drought periodicity isn’t indicative of climate. Decadal-scale flood events aren’t about climate. Variability in the East Asian Monsoon and their connection to ENSO events don’t qualify as climate. In ice cores, precipitation levels are often used as a proxy for temperature, with warmer/cooler temperatures corresponding to more/less precipitation. How odd to take this stance.

Of course these two papers weren’t talking about global temperature. The two papers selected from the compilation on natural variability were addressing regional rainfall patterns and their robust connections to solar activity. Nor was it ever claimed that these two papers were talking about global temperature. According to “consensus” science, though, drought and flood events and precipitation in general are expected to undergo significant shifts…due to changes in CO2 concentrations.

Miralles et al., 2014 “The hydrological cycle is expected to intensify in response to global warming. Yet, little unequivocal evidence of such an acceleration has been found on a global scale.”

These two papers, which do not support the A(2) “consensus” position, instead support the N(2) position that there is nothing unusual about the modern climate (precipitation) relative to past periods, when CO2 concentrations were much lower.

16. PH54: “During a period of La Nina, the Pacific ocean sucks in heat from the atmosphere, and during El Nino, it spits it back out.”

This is actually an incorrect way of putting it. The heat for ENSO events isn’t sourced by atmospheric heat. The heat source is from the ocean itself, and the ocean is heated by the Sun. The atmosphere contains just 1% of the Earth system’s heat. Therefore, the heat flux sequence is almost always from ocean to atmosphere, and not the other way around. The heat redistribution during ENSO events are from the deeper waters to the ocean surface and vice versa.

17. PH54: “None of these papers [Delingpole selected] suggest CO2 is not a major driver of global temperature.”

This is the same non-sequitur referred to in the introduction. Unless a paper expressly states that CO2 is not a major climate driver, it does not count as a paper supporting a skeptical position on climate alarm. This does not follow.

18. PH54: “Further down the list, the papers get more bizarre. Papers about bats being harmed by wind turbines and blade disposal. I’m struggling to see how any of these papers are casting doubt on CO2’s role in global warming.”

The non-sequitur, repeated. But this comment appears most disingenuous, as PH54 should probably understand that these particular papers addressing the harm to the environment and ineffectiveness of renewables-promoting policies were not selected from the literature to cast doubt on CO2’s role in climate change. Instead – and one would assume that most readers would understand this – these papers were selected because they support the position that the “consensus”-endorsed response to the perspective that humans are the dominant cause dangerous global warming is to promote wind and solar energies, and these may not be either effective or environmental friendly.

All PH54 needed to do was look at the introduction to the NoTricksZone article that addressed what these papers were designed to do, or to support. These papers have nothing to do with CO2’s role in global warming. They shouldn’t be expected to.

“Current emissions-mitigation policies, especially related to the advocacy for renewables, are often costly, ineffective, and perhaps even harmful to the environment. On the other hand, elevated CO2 and a warmer climate provide unheralded benefits to the biosphere (i.e., a greener planet and enhanced crop yields).”

19. Addressing the Tejedor et al. (2017) paper, PH54 once again wrongly claims that the paper only addresses the past climate, and makes no reference to the current one. Had he read the entire paper, or even the summary provided by NoTricksZone, he would (should) have noticed (since it is highlighted in bold red) that the paper does, in fact, mention the high solar activity of the last few decades. It also mentions that high solar activity is associated with periods with high temperatures, such as the warming occurring during 1986-2012.

“Reconstructed long-term temperature variations match reasonably well with solar irradiance changes since warm and cold phases correspond with high and low solar activity, respectively. … The main driver of the large-scale character of the warm and cold episodes may be changes in the solar activity. The beginning of the reconstruction starts with the end of the Spörer minimum. The Maunder minimum, from 1645 to 1715 (Luterbacher et al., 2001) seems to be consistent with a cold period from 1645 to 1706. In addition, the Dalton minimum from 1796 to 1830 is detected for the period 1810 to 1838. However, a considerably cold period from 1778 to 1798 is not in agreement with a decrease in the solar activity. Four warm periods – 1626–1637, 1800–1809, 1845– 1859, and 1986–2012 – have been identified to correspond to increased solar activity.”

Then, after asserting the paper addresses the modern era, PH54 highlights (using red underlining) the mention of “anthropogenic forces” in the paper. Curiously, he claims that this particular sentence, as it reads, asserts that CO2 is a “major driver” of climate change.

But if this one rather mild sentence from the paper supports the position that CO2 is a major driver of climatic changes (and perhaps it does), then surely one can agree that the statement asserting the “main driver” of “warm periods” may be increases in solar activity (and the 1986-2012 period is specifically referred to in the paper as a warm period that “corresponds to increased solar activity”) could also be interpreted as support for the position that the Sun has more than a negligible role in modern temperatures for the region.

20. The NoTricksZone compilation contains two graphs from the Tejedor et al. (2017) paper, both of which would appear to support the N(1) position that the modern climate has been impacted by the high solar activity (notice how the warming and cooling events match up rather fittingly with solar activity)…

…and that there is nothing unusual or unprecedented about modern temperatures in the Iberian region to suggest that they have fallen outside the range of natural variability, an N(2) position.

21. Interestingly, the Rydval et al. (2017) paper contains several graphs from the Northern Hemisphere, all of which correspond quite well to the changes in solar activity, including the Medieval Maximum and Modern Grand Maximum. They generally show no net warming since the middle of the 20th century due to a severe cooling period between the 1940s and 1960s (wiping out much of the early 20th century warming), which is consistent with the pattern of solar activity shown earlier.

22. The strongest part of the video response is the section citing 4 or 5 other papers that, in addition to concluding that the Sun plays a role in climate changes, also conclude that CO2 concentrations play an important role too. Some of the identified papers even say that CO2 plays a larger role than natural factors do. While this may appear to fully destroy the position that these papers “debunk” global warming as a myth — a claim which has not been made here — these statements still do not seem to assert that the only, 100% cause of climate changes since 1950 is anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Indeed, even as they claim a significant role for CO2, they do not dismiss natural factors as having any role in climate changes. This is, after all, the “consensus” position as espoused by the IPCC. To support the consensus, then, there should be effectively no role for natural factors in climate change after 1950. Papers that allow natural factors to at least contribute some to the climatic changes would therefore not be supporting the “consensus”. That is why papers like these may still be included, despite the apparent inconsistency.

23. Williams et al. (2017) assert that temperatures warmed more and warmed faster (1.1°C, 0.008°C per year) from the 1660s to the 1800s — when CO2 did not change — than they did during the 1860 to 2007 period (0.8°C, 0.005°C per year). This would not be consistent with the perspective that CO2 emissions are a more dominant climate forcing factor than the non-CO2 factors eliciting temperatures changes during the 17th to 19th centuries. It undermines the A(2) position, and it would be consistent with N(2). Also, while Williams et al. (2017) do state that global temperatures “are exceeding estimates of natural variability”, this is not remotely the same thing as concluding that natural factors do not play a role in climate changes after 1950. Indeed, the opposite is said: natural factors are included as factors playing a role in climate changes “for the last 342 years.”

“Reconstructed SSTs significantly warmed 1.1 ± 0.30°C … from 1660s to 1800 (rate of change: 0.008 ± 0.002°C/year), followed by a significant cooling of 0.8 ± 0.04°C … until 1840 (rate of change: 0.02 ± 0.001°C/year), then a significant warming of 0.8 ± 0.16°C from 1860 until the end of reconstruction in 2007 (rate of change: 0.005 ± 0.001°C/year).”

24. Zawiska et al. (2017) write that human emissions of CO2 are “considered” to be “the most important factor” in modern climate change. They do not conclude that CO2 emissions are effectively the only factor. Furthermore, they conclude that profound temperature changes for the region occurred far more abruptly between 1800 and 1875 than they have since, when the temperature changes have been slower and largely flat for the past 100 years (despite rising CO2 emissions). The abrupt warming event — 4.3°C within 75 years — for the region was said to be forced by “increased solar activity“ and the NAO. Again, this would appear to support the significant role of natural factors in climate changes, and less so the anthropogenic influence, thus supporting both N(1) and N(2). In the graph, notice how closely temperatures correspond to increases and decreases in solar activity.

“The temperature reconstruction from Lake Atnsjøen indicates that recent and ongoing climate warming began already in 1800 CE following the LIA. Temperatures increased very fast, from 8.5 to 12.8 °C during the first 75 years [1800-1875], but in the 20th century the increase became less pronounced.”

25. Abrantes et al. (2017), refer to the Modern Grand Maximum (1940-2000) of very high solar activity, and, like the other authors above, suggest solar activity is a driver of cooling and warming events.

“The coldest SSTs are detected between 1350 and 1850 CE, on Iberia during the well-known Little Ice Age (LIA) (Bradley and Jones, 1993), with the most intense cooling episodes related with other solar minima events, and major volcanic forcing and separated by intervals of relative warmth (e.g. (Crowley and Unterman, 2013; Solanki et al., 2004; Steinhilber et al., 2012; Turner et al., 2016; Usoskin et al., 2011). During the 20th century, the southern records show unusually large decadal scale SST oscillations in the context of the last 2 millennia, in particular after the mid 1970’s, within theGreat Solar Maximum (1940 – 2000 (Usoskin et al., 2011))”

It would not appear that Abrantes et al. (2017) are dismissing solar activity as having any role at all in climate changes, which is what the “consensus” asserts.

Also, this paper provides multiple reconstructions from the region and for the entire Northern Hemisphere that would support N(2), and would not support A(2), as they show that modern temperatures do not fall outside the range of natural variability. All three graphs below even show a cooling trend beginning in the late 20th century, which would appear to be inconsistent with the perspective that CO2 changes are driving climate synchronously on a global scale. Most of the modern warming is shown to have occurred during the first half of the 20th century, when CO2 emissions were but a fraction of what they were after 1950. Again, this would not be consistent with the perspective that CO2 is driving up post-1950 temperatures at an unprecedented rate.

26.Wang et al. (2017) characterize the impact of GHGs on the regional signal for the last 1000 years as a “reasonable speculation”. “Reasonable speculation” that the millennial-scale changes may have been affected by GHGs would not appear to be a ringing endorsement. Furthermore, millennial-scale changes would appear to be distinct from the changes after 1950, as human emissions could not have been driving climate on that timescale. The authors also agree that their findings are consistent with Dr. Scafetta’s work, a scientist who has taken the position that the Sun has played a major role in climate changes, including during the modern era.

“The driving forces of climate change were investigated and the results showed two independent degrees of freedom —a 3.36-year cycle and a 22.6-year cycle, which seem to be connected to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation cycle and the Hale sunspot cycle, respectively. … Solar variability has been shown to be a major driver of climate in central Europe during the past two millennia using Δ14C records. Furthermore, this result is essentially in good agreement with the findings of Scafetta e.g. refs 17, 18, 19, who found that the climate system was mostly characterized by a specific set of oscillations and these oscillations (61, 115, 130 and 983 years) appeared to be synchronous with major astronomical oscillations (solar system, solar activity and long solar/lunar tidal cycles).”

27. Other than natural vs. anthropogenic attribution for warming temperatures, PH54 does not address any of the other positions detailed in the 400+ papers compilation…other than to poke fun at the bat extinction and turbine waste issues. The papers asserting the inadequacies of the models go unaddressed, as do the papers on the cryosphere, cloud variations and surface solar radiation. The much higher temperatures and sea levels of years past, when CO2 concentrations were in the “safe” range, would appear to be a topic with some cogency when discussing global-scale warming. None of the ~140 papers on the 2nd list were even touched on.